Tuesday, January 17, 2012

I recently looked at Sherdog's top 10 MMA rankings list and updated the names here with ages. I expected that the lighter weight classes would have a younger average age because, at lighter weights, speed is a more important factor. Speed and reflexes become reduced at an earlier age than the reduction of power.

For a result, we find that heavyweight has the highest average age. Also, we find that lightweight has the lowest average age. Of course, speed isn't the only factor to consider when looking at the average age of each division. The talent pool that is available to each weight class also has a large effect on the numbers.

I have some thoughts about fighters who have changed divisions by either moving up or down in weight.

Some have succeeded when moving up from light heavyweight to heavyweight. For example, Randy Couture and Alistair Overeem. Other fighters have dropped down from light heavyweight to find success at middleweight (Chael Sonnen, Brian Stann).

However, we must also look at fighters who have not had success when moving down a division, such as Kenny Florian and Tyson Griffin (lightweight to featherweight).

I can predict many things from these numbers. Age isn't the only factor to take into account here, but I'm sure that you can follow the same line of thought as me.